The performance demands on garments such as shirts are varied. When going out for a meal diners will occasionally end up spilling food down the front of their shirts. To avoid embarrassment it is particularly important that such spills can be readily cleaned up, for instance using a napkin or the like, without staining. For comfort, the shirt should mitigate the accumulation of moisture on the skin of the wearer; the collar and cuffs, which are unavoidably soiled in use, must be readily laundered, and the garment should have and retain a good appearance. All of these properties should be retained through a reasonable number of washes. Prior art shirts have not satisfactorily addressed all of these requirements.
Water and oil repellency are generally attained in absorbent fabric applications either by hydrophobic polymer films or by the attachment, chemically or physically, of hydrophobic species to the fibres of the fabric. Compared to polymeric coatings, the hydrophobic species can penetrate within the fabric to produce a more durable coating. These finishes help to reduce the tendency of soil, oil, and water to adhere to the fibres and so prevent staining. However, these treatments also reduce the ability of the fabric to absorb and wick moisture away from the skin and so shirts made of fabrics treated for water and oil repellency are uncomfortable to wear.
Natural fibres such as cotton have little water and oil repellency, but when soiled, they are fairly readily cleaned, thus exhibiting a degree of soil releasability. Hydrophilic soil release polymers are used to treat fabrics to increase soil releasability. For good appearance the fabric of a shirt should also have wrinkle-free properties finish (also known as “easy care”, “durable press”, “wrinkle-resistant”, “wash and wear”, “non-iron” etc) and a number of agents are known for treating fabrics so that they retain a smooth appearance.
One method for treating fabrics to simultaneously impart both oil- and water-repellent components and soil release characteristics has been to use copolymers containing fluorocarbon oil- and water-repellent components and hydrophilic soil release components. However the resulting oil and water repellency is lower than that obtained with fluorochemical treatments and for shirts their soil release properties are not sufficiently wash-durable.
A shirt is assembled from a number of different portions or panels, including the front, back, sleeves, cuffs and collar, and these portions must be accurately colour matched. To maintain proper shape of a shirt these portions should also possess consistent shrinkage properties. When manufacturing a technical garment such as that used for outdoor sports different appearances of the different portions of the garment are highlighted as design elements, however this cannot be done in a shirt. Therefore it will be understood that there is a need when manufacturing a shirt from portions with different performance characteristics then these issues of colour and shrinkage variation must be addressed.